Chocolate Macarons
Delicate French almond meringue shells flavoured with cocoa and sandwiched with a dark chocolate ganache, baked for 18 minutes.
Photograph credit: Macarons chocolat, caramel beurre salé et café (Bouillet) by Benoît Prieur · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
How to Cook Chocolate Macarons
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Process the ground almonds, icing sugar and cocoa, then sift twice. Line 2 trays with baking paper.
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Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, add the caster sugar gradually and whisk to stiff, glossy peaks.
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Fold in the dry mix in 3 additions until the batter flows like lava and falls in a ribbon.
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Pipe 48 rounds, 3 cm wide, onto the trays. Rap the trays on the counter and rest for 30 minutes until the tops are dry to the touch.
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Bake at 150°C / 300°F for 18 minutes. Cool completely. Heat the cream, pour over the chocolate, stir until smooth and cool until thick. Pipe onto half the shells and sandwich.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Things to Watch For
- Weigh all the ingredients.
- Rest the shells until a skin forms.
- Cool the shells before peeling.
The Short Version
Macarons have a reputation for being difficult, and they are fussy rather than hard. Almost every failure is traced to one of four things: wet almonds, under-whipped meringue, overmixed batter or an oven that is too hot. Get those right and the shells rise with their frilly feet, smooth and shiny, every time.
Measure everything by weight. Grind the almonds with the icing sugar and cocoa in a food processor and sift the mix twice, discarding the coarse bits. Whisk the egg whites with the caster sugar to stiff, glossy peaks, so firm that you can hold the bowl upside down. This is the structure the whole batter depends on.
Fold the dry ingredients into the meringue until the batter flows like lava. This is called macaronage. The batter should fall from the spatula in a thick ribbon that melts back into the mass in about 20 seconds. Too stiff and the shells are lumpy and cracked; too loose and they spread flat and lack feet.
Pipe even circles onto lined trays, rap the trays hard on the counter to release air bubbles, and let the shells rest for 30 minutes until a skin forms. Bake at 150°C / 300°F for 18 minutes. Cool completely before peeling off the paper, and fill with ganache.
To Go With It
Espresso · Coffee · Champagne · Hot chocolate
Leftovers
Best after 24 hours in the fridge. Keeps for 4 days.
Quick Answers
How long does Chocolate Macarons take to make?
50 minutes of preparation and 18 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of resting, so allow 1 hour 38 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling completely, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 24.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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